DHS head addresses Secret Service overtime problem

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson last month reassured Secret Service agents who are racking up unpaid overtime hours that a remedy is being sought.

Johnson issued a statement on the matter in the wake of media reports stating that many agents were working long hours with no extra pay.

“Recent news reports note, accurately, that during this busy election year many in the Secret Service are working overtime beyond the capped levels of their salaries,” Johnson said in an Oct. 28 statement. “We must and we will fix this.”

“The men and women of the Secret Service, and the public, should know that both the House and Senate Appropriations Committees have taken action to address this issue in their FY 2017 Appropriation bills for the Department of Homeland Security by including provisions to raise Secret Service salary caps during presidential years, including 2016,” he wrote. “We appreciate this action. My hope and expectation is that this will pass, and this is another reason why this department, and its men and women, need from Congress a full-year appropriation rather than a funding by short-term continuing resolutions.”

Johnson noted that the agency this year provided protection to the UN General Assembly even as they protected the presidential and vice presidential candidates and families, and secured the two party conventions in Cleveland and Philadelphia.

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